The Slayer on the Road
by filmFreak1
Summary: Follows S7, ignores comics. In a post apocalyptic world, Buffy has lived to see all of her friends die; worse yet, she cannot die. She and an old enemy travel together and rely on each other for food, comfort, and more. Inspired by Cormac McCarthy's The Road (no spoilers). Contains sexual content (including femslash), strong violence, language. Very dark, includes character death.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: **I don't own them or make money from them; they are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.

She awakes, startled by a loud cracking sound, which is followed shortly afterward by a muffled thud. She initially panics. _Eaters!_ she thinks.

A second later, Buffy comes to her senses. No, probably not the Eaters; there are few if any left these days. She has not seen any of them in a long time, or any other living human being, for that matter. _How long _has _it been?_ she wonders. _Months? Years?_ She has no idea what the date is; she lost track of time long ago. _For all I know, I may be the last living person on Earth._

She realizes that the cracking sound and thud were likely due to yet another tree having finally fallen over in the nearby forest. This is not an unusual occurrence nowadays, not since most (all?) of the trees have been dead for a long time (even longer than when she last knew the date), along with the other wildlife.

Unzipping her sleeping bag, she stands up and looks around. She is camped out next to a pool at the bottom of a waterfall which produces a very relaxing sound; this sound helped lull her to sleep the night before.

She squints at the sky. She thinks it is probably morning, but there is no way to tell with any certainty. Every time of the day looks the same with the thick gray clouds which cover the sky, and the ash which still floats on the air. The sun only breaks through the clouds on very rare occasion (and even then only momentarily); it has been this way since this apocalypse began, before everything went wrong.

Before all the wildlife became virtually extinct.

Before many of the humans formed tribes (the ones which eventually became known by many as the Eaters) which roamed (_or still roam? s_he wonders) the ravaged landscape, hunting other humans to recompense the food shortage.

Before her friends started dying one by one.

Resting next to her sleeping bag is the shopping cart which she has pushed around for months now; she had to replace the last one when one of its wheels finally gave out. It contains her extra clothes and her dwindling food supplies, which consist of several cans of food and a large bag of rice (she remembers hearing once that rice could last for decades if stored properly).

She eats meager meals these days so that the food will last until she can find more; she shudders at the thought of having to turn to that _other_ food source that she has had to rely on many times before.

She will boil a small serving of rice over a fire later for breakfast, but for now, it's time for a swim. Stripping off her clothes, she ties her blonde hair back into a ponytail and begins to walk up to a higher point alongside the waterfall.

On the way up, she yelps when she feels a sharp pain under her left foot. She lifts it up, and immediately sees blood spilling onto the sharp rock which she has just trod on. She bends her leg inward and props above her right knee so she can look at the injury more closely.

She cringes; the sole of her foot has a very sizable gash in it. Before the warlock's curse, she would have required immediate medical attention, but the warlock (the same one who had caused this apocalypse) made sure that injuries such as this would never be a big problem for her ever again.

_Death for all,_ the warlock had said. _But not for you, Slayer._

After she has stood on her right leg for a moment, she finally sees the gash in her foot slowly close up; there is no more pain, but blood still remains where the gash was. Sighing, she sets her foot back down (carefully avoiding the sharp rock this time) and continues her climb.

When she has reached a cliff next to the waterfall, she looks down. She cannot see the bottom of the pool, of course; the ash and dust have made it too murky. She estimates that she is about fifty feet up. She will have to be careful to avoid the rocks below. Not that she'll die if she hits them, of course, but it would take a while (possibly hours) to heal all her wounds and broken bones, and it would be an extremely painful experience. After pondering this, she considers her path and leaps into the pool below.

Even though she anticipates the shock of the cold water hitting her body, it still takes a moment before she gets used to the temperature. The water tastes sulfuric, but she has been acclimated to this for a long time now.

After swimming around for a few minutes, she finally floats on her back on the surface of the water, arms and longs spread out. She is very relaxed.

Then her mind goes back to the warlock's words.

_Death for all,_ the warlock had said, laughing with his dying breath. _But not for you, Slayer. No, you will live to see all die. Your friends. Your family. All life. And just when you think you could not possibly suffer anymore than you already have...you will keep on living yet. Living until the end of the world and perhaps until the end of time itself._

Her memories are interrupted by a disturbance in the water, which warns her about the other one's presence.

She knows who it is, of course, and because of this, does not give much resistance when the cold hands embrace her. The right arm reaches across her shoulders from behind and pulls her up into a standing position. The left hand runs down over her abdomen as the right gently squeezes her left breast. She begins to moan, but then feels two sharp points on her right shoulder.

This jolts her back to reality. Turning around, she shoves the other woman away from her, causing her to fall back in the water.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing!" she screams.

"Ooh, mummy is mad at me," replies the naked, pale brunette in her sing-song voice as she regains her footing and comes back out of the water. They are both waist deep in the pool.

The brunette is still wearing her vampire face.

"You know the rule," replies Buffy. "What's the rule again?"

"But I'm hungry," pouts the brunette vampire.

"What's the rule? Say it, Dru."

Drusilla sighs and crosses her arms under her breasts. "I always ask before I eat."

Buffy nods. "That's right, you always ask before you eat, and don't get mad at me, either. If it weren't for me, you'd be a walking skeleton by now."

"Fine," replies Drusilla. "May I eat now, mummy?"

The slayer hates it when the vampire calls her mummy, finding it weird and creepy (given their relationship), but lets it go, since she seems to insist on it. _That's what you get for helping her get healthy again instead of staking her, _she thinks to herself.

"Yes, you may eat." She tilts her head to one side to offer herself to the vampire.

Drusilla shifts her face back into vampire form, steps forward, and hugs the slayer's naked body to her own. Then she bites into the exposed shoulder.

Buffy gasps as Drusilla's fangs tear into her flesh (she has to bite deep to prevent the wounds from closing up too quickly), and the blood begins to flow. After the initial bite, Drusilla begins to drink, and the slayer moans; it feels so painful, yet so good at the same time.

A moment later, the vampire steps back, shifts back to her human face, and wipes Buffy's blood from her mouth. Another moment later, the fang marks on the slayer's shoulder close up again like they always do.

"I want to play now, mummy!" says Drusilla, clapping her hands. "Can we play now, please?"

Buffy nods. "Okay, let's play." At this, the vampire claps again and gives a squeal of delight.

Drusilla now leans in closely and briefly touches her lips to Buffy's, but the slayer pulls back and puts her finger's over the vampire's mouth to stop her.

"You missed a step, Dru. You know you can't kiss me until you're...not you anymore."

Drusilla pouts again, disappointed, but finally nods when Buffy only stares at her. Then she points her right index and middle fingers at the blonde slayer's eyes. "Look at my eyes." She points at her own eyes, then back at the slayer's. "Be in me." Then she runs her right hand over the slayer's eyes.

Buffy is now no longer looking at Drusilla, but at Angel who, like her, also stands naked in the water. So this is who Drusilla chose to be this time.

"Buffy," says Angel, smiling.

Buffy smiles back. "Angel! You're alive." She knows it's a lie, of course, but she doesn't care.

Angel leans in and kisses Buffy deeply; this time Buffy accepts the kiss. She knows that it is really Drusilla's lips and not Angel's that she tastes, but she doesn't care.

He steps back and smiles again. Then he kneels down below the surface of the water so that Buffy can't see him anymore.

A second later, the slayer giggles when she feels the cold hands run up her legs, over her backside, up to the small of her back. Then the strong arms lift her up onto the vampire's shoulders so that his (her) face is now between Buffy's thighs. The slayer crosses her ankles behind the vampire's back. It is fortunate that vampires do not need to breathe, since Angel (Drusilla) is still underwater.

Buffy knows that it is really Drusilla and not Angel that she feels kissing and licking her down there, still holding the slayer in place on his (her) shoulders. But she doesn't care.

"Yes, Angel, like that!" she shrieks. She places her hands on the vampire's shoulders. Then she shudders as she climaxes and digs her nails into the cold flesh.

A moment later, the vampire comes back up out of the water. Drusilla has ended the hypnosis, and now resembles herself again. She smiles at the slayer, then leans forward and gives her a quick kiss on the lips; the slayer is startled, but says nothing. Then the vampire turns around, showing the scratches the slayer left on her shoulders.

"Sorry," says Buffy weakly. "Guess I got a little rough, huh?"

"Mummy hurt me. Just like Angel and Spike used to hurt me." She smiles again. "I _love_ it when they hurt me." Then she swims away and gets out of the pool.

Buffy decides to float on her back again for a while, and goes back to trying to remember.

_Death for all. __But not for you, Slayer._

**Author's Note**

_This was inspired by the film _The Road, _based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. While this fic does not necessarily take place in the same universe, it is intended to resemble it._

_If I continue this, I plan for the next few chapters to involve flashbacks showing how the apocalypse started, how the Scoobies all died, how Buffy and Drusilla met up and became involved with each other, etc._

_As always, leave feedback; it might just help determine what direction I go with this story!_


	2. The Beginning of the End

_How did I get to this point? _the slayer asks herself again as she gets out of the water and heads back to the camp.

Unlike Buffy, Drusilla does not sleep in the open. She is free to walk around in the daytime almost all the time thanks to the constant cloud cover, but there is still a risk of a ray of sun occasionally making its way through. For this reason, she sleeps in the shade of a lean-to tent. She is under her tent now, sitting on her makeshift bed, with her legs straight in front her; she has donned her full-length, flowing, dark red dress. She smiles at Buffy as the slayer dries herself off with a towel.

Wrapping the towel around her torso, Buffy goes over to Drusilla's lean-to; the vampire pulls in her legs and crosses them Indian-style, knowing why the slayer is there. Buffy sits in the same position facing her.

"You're here for punishment, aren't you?" says Drusilla. "Not to play this time. Angelus used to punish me. Darla, too. Spike as well, but only when I begged. Before they all abandoned me. Before the stars abandoned me; I miss them even more."

"Help me to remember how I got here," replies Buffy. "Take me back to when all this started."

The vampire silently points her fingers at the slayer's eyes once again. "Be in me."

The slayer obeys.

_Some time ago_

Other than saying that all life (with the exception of Buffy) would end, the now-deceased warlock had not been clear on the exact nature of his apocalypse. Buffy and the others expected that, like most of the apocalypses they had prevented, this one would have been very quick to make itself obvious. Thus, when nothing happened initially, they assumed that the warlock had been unsuccessful.

Then the news reports began to come in. Government officials were trying to figure out why plant and animal life had started to die everywhere. Scientists believed that it was the plants that had died first, then the herbivores, then the carnivores who fed on the herbivores, and so on. It was hard to tell, though, since it all happened so quickly.

As if this wasn't enough, meteorologists were getting concerned as well when they started noticing that clouds were beginning to appear more and more often, with no sign of going anywhere.

As soon as Buffy and the others saw these first reports, they knew exactly what had happened. She put the slayer organization on alert to warn them.

At the time, Buffy and many slayers under her direct command were operating out of New York City. She and Dawn were sharing a sizable, luxurious penthouse which was being paid for by the new Watcher's Council.

Her friends came in from everywhere to be together, as they knew that travelling would soon be a great difficulty. Xander flew in from Africa. Faith drove in from Cleveland . Andrew and Vi—the redheaded slayer who, along with the other potential slayers, had fought alongside the group during the battle which had ended with the destruction of Sunnydale—traveled from Rome to London to meet up with Giles, and then they took a transatlantic flight together to New York. Willow and Kennedy were the last to show, arriving from Brazil.

After the initial reports had come in, people hit the stores in a panic. Grocery stores initially enjoyed the record sales, but then had to close when they could no longer order any new inventory. Gun sales shot up exponentially, as did sales of camping and survival gear.

Within weeks, governments all around the world had instituted martial law and implemented food rationing programs. Soldiers patrolled the streets of New York City, enforcing the new curfew. There were many reports of looters being gunned down.

A few months later, even the government rations had run out. That was when the real chaos began.

Soldiers began deserting their posts. Without this law enforcement, violent crime went out of control. Rumors started being whispered that some people were resorting to cannibalism for survival.

Initially, Buffy had had many slayers under her command where she was. But they had begun deserting around the same time the soldiers did. So by the time the last news station went off the air (the federal government had already long since collapsed), only she and her friends were left—Xander, Willow, Dawn, Giles, Faith, Kennedy, Andrew, and Vi.

It was at this point that they realized they could no longer stay in the penthouse—it was time to get out of the city. They had stocked up on food at the beginning, but these supplies had greatly dwindled to the point that they were rationing themselves two small meals a day. They had stocked up on weapons, as well, including assault rifles and explosives; they knew that the enemies they encountered on the road were probably not going to be wielding swords and crossbows. They packed all these supplies, loading what they could into backpacks and duffel bags and distributing them among the group according to strength, which of course meant that the four slayers were carrying the bulk.

Finally, they set out one morning, using subway tunnels to help get out of the city so as to avoid the looters and gangs on the streets.

It was less than a week later that the first deaths happened in the group.


End file.
